The Obama Administration announced that it will not deport illegal aliens who commit “minor offenses.” Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton claimed that not enforcing the law against these aliens will enable his agency to focus on “serious offenders.”

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer argued that Hispanics should be a “natural constituency” for Republicans because they are conservative (Special Report w/ Bret Baier, 12/4/12). He maintained that Republicans could tap into this constituency for more votes if they could stop alienating Hispanics by opposing amnesty for illegal aliens.

Fact Check: This commonly made claim ignores the fact that amnesty, as shown by polls, is not really the key issue in terms of Hispanic reluctance to vote for Republicans. The real problem is that Hispanics in general are not conservative, and are not particularly outstanding in the religious and family values often attributed to them.

According to a recent study by the PewHispanicCenter, 30 percent of Hispanics identify themselves as “liberal” compared with 21 percent of the general U.S. population. The study also found that only 19 percent of Hispanics agree with the conservative position that we should have fewer public services and smaller government. Seventy-five percent disagree. Among Americans as a whole 48 percent agreed with the less government position, compared with 41 percent who disagreed.

This preference for more government programs among Hispanics isn’t surprising, given the relatively high level of poverty in the Hispanic community. Twenty-eight percent of Hispanics live in poverty, compared with 16 percent of the population as a whole.

Polls confirm that economic considerations are far more important to Hispanic voters than amnesty and other policies related to immigration. Before the last election, a Fox News Latino Poll found that 48 percent of Hispanics said that the economy would be the most important issue deciding their vote. Only six percent mentioned immigration.

And, again, the economic concerns of many Hispanics are not those of Republicans. In 2011, Moore Information did a poll of Hispanics in California, the state with the largest Hispanic population. Twenty-nine percent objected to the Republicans on grounds that they mainly “favored the rich” and were out of touch with the average person. Only seven percent mentioned immigration as the main cause of their opposition to the party.

What about the claim that Hispanics are a natural GOP constituency on the basis of religious orientation and family values? The findings of General Social Survey are not encouraging for Republicans. Hispanics are somewhat less likely to attend worship services regularly than the general population (29 percent to 31 percent). With respect to family values, according to the National Vital Statistics Report, 53.2 percent of Hispanic babies were born out of wedlock in 2010, compared with the national average of 41 percent. The percentages for other groups were as follows: whites, 29 percent; blacks, 72.5 percent; and Asians 17 percent.

What then can Republicans do to appeal to Hispanic voters? One possibility is explaining to them that amnesty and mass immigration are harmful to their economic concerns.

Specifically, they can argue that amnesty will encourage more illegal immigration, and that more job seekers (illegal and legal) will reduce job opportunities and wage levels for American Hispanics. Currently the unemployment rate for Hispanics (10 percent) is significantly higher than the national average (7.7 percent).

Republicans could address to the desire of Hispanics (foreign and native-born) to achieve the American Dream, by pointing out that the immigration restriction laws of 1921 and 1924 greatly assisted the assimilation and economic advancement of immigrants and their children in the decades following those laws.

They might also point out to rank and file Hispanics that the goal of pro-immigration Hispanic groups is building ethic political clout for themselves, with a poor and alienated base, rather than lose power by seeing Hispanics move into the American mainstream.

Something that may stop this form of Republican outreach is the influence of the GOP’s powerful faction that wants mass immigration to continue for the sake of cheap labor. If that faction prevails, poverty and alienation among Hispanics will increase, as well as their overall opposition to the Republican Party.

The Obama administration is scrapping part of a controversial program that deputizes state and local police to help enforce federal immigration laws in Georgia and many other states.

The 287(g) program — named after the federal law that authorizes it — gives police the power to question people about their legal status, serve arrest warrants, and detain and transport criminals for immigration violations.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued a news release Friday saying it is terminating the “task force” part of the program in which police help with street-level immigration enforcement in Georgia and other states. That part of the program will end Dec. 31.

Oklahoma, announced state Attorney General Scott Pruitt, will begin to enforce a state law requiring businesses to check whether new employees are legal residents. A number of legal challenges delayed implementation of the law. The businesses the law covers are those that contract with state and city govenrments. Twenty-two other states have similar employment verification laws.

A study by the Center for Immigration Studies found illegal immigration has a significant impact on job opportunites for Americans, particularly those with less education. The study noted that the unemployment figures for Americans with less than a high school education are “huge,” and many illegal aliens are in direct competition with them.

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), who has a strong record against illegal immigration, has been appointed to head the immigration subcommittee of the House. That position will play a key role in the upcoming debate on amnesty. Rep. Gowdy has spoken out against the Obama Administration’s unilateral decree of amnesty for illegal aliens in the “Dream Act” category.

The federal government’s system of tracking immigration status is so broken that it gives a green light to one in eight aliens who have been ordered deported, according to an audit Tuesday that found the government has gone on to approve some of those who slip through for work in sensitive areas of airports and granted them benefits such as Medicaid or food stamps.

Some of those aliens who should have been kicked out had serious criminal records, including assault and extortion convictions, according to the audit by the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general.

All told, some 800,000 immigrants are living in the U.S. who already have been ordered deported but have not yet left the country or been removed by the government.

WASHINGTON — House leaders chose a vocal opponent of illegal immigration to head up the chamber’s immigration subcommittee, which will play an integral role in the upcoming debates on how to reform the nation’s immigration laws.

Incoming House Judiciary Chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., announced Tuesday that Rep. Trey Gowdy, a former South Carolina prosecutor who was part of the GOP freshman wave of 2010, will head the Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security.

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